Cureton is one of the real shining stars in the CIO community. She has a must-read blog … she uses Twitter… and she is one of the more innovative CIOs out there right now.

Today, she celebrates one of the big birthdays — one of the ones with
an “oh” following it. We will be celebrating with her tonight at FCW’s
annual Federal 100 awards gala.

Meanwhile, on this date in history… Maryland was first settled … Mercedes debuted …
and in 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the
state
capitol in Montgomery, Ala., to protest the denial of voting rights to
blacks. She shares her birthday with Sarah Jessica Parker, who turns 44
years old today… Elton John (62), Gloria Steinem (75), Aretha
Franklin (67), and Sen. John Ensign, R-NV (51).

More events in history:

1807 Britain abolished its slave trade.

1894 Jacob S. Coxey
began leading an “army” of the unemployed from Massillon, Ohio, to
Washington, D.C., to demand help from the federal government.

1911 A fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. factory in New York City
killed 146 workers, most of them young immigrant women. The tragedy
galvanized America’s labor movement.

1913 The home of vaudeville, the Palace Theatre, opened in New York City.

1957 The Treaty of Rome established the European Economic Community.

1975 King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot to death by a nephew with a history of mental illness.

1988 Robert E. Chambers Jr. pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter
in the death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin in New York City’s so-called
“preppie murder case.”

1992 Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returned
to Earth from the Mir space station after a 10-month stay, during which
his native country, the Soviet Union, ceased to exist.

1994 American troops completed their withdrawal from Somalia.

1996 An 81-day standoff by the antigovernment Freemen began at a ranch near Jordan, Mont.

1996 The redesigned $100 bill went into circulation.

1998 President Bill Clinton acknowledged during his Africa tour that
“we did not act quickly enough” to stop the slaughter of 1 million
Rwandans four years earlier.

2002 A powerful earthquake rocked Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, killing as many as 1,000 people.

2004 Congress passed a law making it a separate offense to harm a fetus during a violent federal crime.

A very happy birthday to Bob Brewin, the long-time defense reporter who has recently become a blogger for Government Executive’s NextGov. (Frankly, I remain a bit baffled why NextGov continues to bury Brewin’s always enjoyable columns/blog. Agree or disagree with him — and there are plenty of people who do both — Brewin is a wonderful character who captures insights that are difficult to find anywhere else. Why wouldn’t one make him the cornerstone of your Web site? Instead, he is a barely findable tap.)

I had the pleasure of working with Brewin while I was at Federal Computer Week. Brewin does his thing from out in Las Vegas, NM — as Bob points out, it is the original Las Vegas. Las Vegas, NM is this remarkable place in the world that sits literally right where the maintains meets the plains.

Brewin — and, I might add, 1105 Government Information Group’s production guru Rose Johnson — share their birthdays with journalist Ted Koppel (69), composer John Williams (77)… also, some birthdays from history… also born on this date were Lana Turner, who died in 1995 at the age of 74, and James Dean, who died in 1955 at the age of 24. It was also on this date in 1006 that, in a ceremony at the Library of Congress, President Clinton signed legislation revamping the telecommunications industry, saying it would “bring the future to our doorstep”… and in 1693, the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia is granted a charter by King William III and Queen Mary II.

On this date in history… in 1653, New Amsterdam, now New York City, was incorporated… in 2004, ricin was discovered in offices used by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist… in 1971, Idi Amin assumed power in Uganda following a coup… and in 1887, the first Groundhog Day. (More on that after the break.)… It is also the birthday of singerShakira (32), actress Farrah Fawcett (62), TV-film executive Barry Diller (67), Crosby, Stills and Nash’s Graham Nash (67), Star Trek TNG actor Bret Spiner (60), and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) (60).

Read more about Groundhog Day and more about what happened on this date after the break.

Armstrong, my former boss when I was the editor in chief at Federal Computer Week, doesn’t really like people to ackwledge her birthday — something that I specifically made not of when I mentioned it on Federal News Radio 1500 AM on Friday. (She’ll be really thrilled with that!)

He also celebrates with singer Art Garfunkel (67), playwright Sam Shepard (65), rock singer Bryan Adams (49), actress Tatum O’Neal (45), and Kevin Jonas, one part of the group The Jonas Brothers, who turns 21. (Here is the test for Ryan — does he know who the Jonas Brothers are?)

And it was on this date in 1872, Suffragist Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in a presidential election…. and in 1895 that George B. Selden of Rochester, N.Y., received the first U.S. patent for an automobile.